


memories in watercolor

by dansunedisco



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Cabin Fic, Canon-Typical Violence, Flashbacks, Fluff, Food, Healing, Kissing, Love, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Referenced therapy, Stargazing, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-26
Updated: 2016-06-26
Packaged: 2018-07-18 06:29:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7303219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dansunedisco/pseuds/dansunedisco
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve, Bucky, and a cabin in the mountains.</p>
            </blockquote>





	memories in watercolor

**Author's Note:**

  * For [doctorkaitlyn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/doctorkaitlyn/gifts).



> for kaitlyn's prompt **stucky + stargazing**
> 
> wherein i do my darndest to take one piece of the prompt and write another thing entirely :')

He borrows Sam’s car, and drives them up into the mountains. The cabin he booked is in the middle of nowhere; so far up a steep trail that they have to park the jeep behind a patch of brambles off road and hike the rest of the way, duffle bags slung over shoulders. He punches in the code to the door-- _22583_ memorized from an e-mail on the cellphone he left back in DC-- and turns the knob. He knows, generally, what to expect inside, but he’s still caught off guard when Steve’s breath hitches. _Happy_ , he thinks. Steve’s happy.

The cabin is as close to perfect as it can get. Small, and homey, with just enough kitschy porcelain statues scattered throughout to dull the romance. If he squints his eyes, he can almost pretend they aren’t standing in 2016. That he isn’t some shadow of Bucky Barnes, trying to romance the leftovers of Steve Rogers. The flat screen TV hanging above the hearth ruins the illusion, but. It’s almost enough.

They don’t bother with pretenses, and leave their bags in the same room. They slept together in Brooklyn, and all across Europe during the war. A lot has changed since then, but not that. Barnes-- because he’s not _Bucky_ , not tonight, not yet-- goes to wash up in the bathroom, murmuring about the damn bear motif all the while. “I swear to god it wasn’t this bad in the pictures,” he murmurs to himself, and turns the little grizzly grinning up at him around to face the wall.

He finds Steve on the balcony. Though this cold won’t bother him, he has a thick blanket over his lap, tucked securely around his legs. His toes, bare, stick out into the evening air. Barnes smiles, fond, a fuzzy memory scratching at the back of his neck. It feels like a wartime one, but trying to pull it forward into clarity makes the spot behind his ear pound and throb, like an ice pick digging into his brain, so he lets it go. Memories come in waves, sometimes-- cresting over him with enough force it makes him reel, caught in a dangerous riptide. Tonight, it merely passes over him with a whisper. He joins Steve on the bench. The view is breathtaking: sprawling forest, a river snaking through the valley below, a snow-capped mountain in the distance. The sky is clear, blue and purple and pink. Like watercolors. It feels like they’re alone, just the two of them up here in the hills. It feels like they’re free.

“Like it?” he asks.

His therapist told him his need for validation is a by-product of seventy-plus years of no autonomy. This trip was his idea. It grew out of him one morning, after watching a documentary on hiking the Oregon Crest Trail. He fixated on the concept of him and Steve, away from everyone, and no matter how hard he tried to let it go, his mind kept circling back to it until the fantasy grew impossibly large: booking a cabin, making s’mores, kissing the sugar off Steve’s lips, tucked away in the wilderness doing whatever the hell they wanted to do. And no small part of him is crawling to know that Steve’s pleased, that it turned out okay.

Steve huffs a laugh, and drags Barnes flush against his side; presses a hard kiss against Barnes’ temple. “It’s perfect, Buck,” he whispers, voice thick with feeling. “Do you-- do you remember, when we made a blanket fort inside? We must’ve been-- say, five and six? Your ma was incensed.”

He does remember. “She’d just washed the sheets,” Barnes murmurs, always amazed at how easily Steve’s able to coax long-forgotten moments from him. He can see it all, now: they’d just come in from playing street ball with the neighborhood kids, Steve’s lungs rattling like a tin can. “We were covered in dirt, weren’t we? She must’ve swatted my hide red and raw for the next week...” She didn’t lay a hand on Steve. He doesn’t remember that, but he knows. He knows she wouldn’t have.

Steve sighs against him like he’s uncoiling a year’s worth of tension. “She sure did,” he says, fingers rubbing absent, soothing circles against Barnes’ shoulder. “If she would’ve known the trouble you were gonna get yourself into in the coming years, she might’ve swatted a couple extra--”

“Hey, half the trouble I got into was on account of _your_ big mouth,” he says, and shoves away from Steve’s embrace, but there’s a playful twist to his mouth that’s impossible for him to wash away. “How many times did I hafta pick your ass out of trash heaps?”

Steve grins, brighter than the sun. “Oh, at least a dozen.”

He leans forward and plants a kiss on Steve’s mouth, tired of waiting for a better time; Steve tastes a little like stale mint gum and chapstick, and he grabs the side of Steve’s face to better tilt him where he wants him. He doesn’t even have time to think _is this a bad idea_ before Steve’s dragging him closer and moaning against him, burning hot.

They stay outside and make out like teenagers, until the sun slips behind the horizon and perfect darkness drops like a curtain. When they pull apart, Steve’s mouth is red, cheeks irritated from Barnes’ days old stubble. Stars dot the sky. The crescent moon hangs above them, pale and luminous. Barnes blinks up at it, that shivery feeling of another memory prickling at his skin. His fingers tighten against Steve’s broad shoulders, a warning. His vision fuzzes, blurs, and suddenly--

 

Pacific ocean. Destroyer. 17 knots. A metal fist and a man’s neck. _01101101 01101001 01110011 01110011 01101001 01101111 01101110_ \--

 

It feels like forever before the Soldier’s memory dulls, excruciatingly slow, Barnes’ present taking precedence bit by bit. He comes out of it sweating, the gray tint hovering at the edge of his vision receding like it was commanded to. He takes a steadying breath, calm under the anchor points of Steve’s gentle hands on his wrists. “Was I under a long time?”

“No, not long,” Steve replies. “What was it?”

He sits back, distancing himself a little. “The moon, I think. It was a night op, and I-- I think I remember looking up at the sky and it was so _dark_ \--” He rubs his forehead. “I guess camping’s out.”

“We can make s’mores in the microwave,” Steve offers. “Or we could use the fireplace.” His stomach rumbles then, like it was summoned into being at the hint of food, and he barks out an embarrassed laugh.

Barnes gives him a peck of a kiss. “Mm, food. We have a jacuzzi tub inside, too, if you wanna…”

“Uh, if you wanna with everyone else who ‘wanna’ed’ in there.”

“Gross,” he says, because of course Steve’s brain would jump to hot tub hygiene, and flutters his hand towards the kitchen. “Go on; make us s’mores, Cap."

“Not sure if you know this, _but_ you, too, can make your own food.”

“It tastes better when you make it.”

“Oh, it does, does it?” Steve laughs, wriggling out of the blankets, “You stayin’ out here?”

“Yeah. I think I will,” he says, and leans into Steve’s hand when he combs it through his hair, up and on his way inside to make a very, very late night snack. He knows he can’t run inside, every single time a flashback chips at him. It’s not a way to live, and Barnes-- _Bucky_ is living.

A minute later, Steve pokes his head out the sliding glass door. “They have Netflix, Buck,” he says, “Let’s eat our body weight in chocolate and marshmallows and pull an all nighter.”

“Sounds like a plan,” he says, winks, “my star-spangled man.”

Steve groans like he’s in pain, and Bucky sighs, utterly satisfied with his lowbrow wit. He threads his fingers together and cushions his head in his palms, feeling bright and light under the soft glow of the stars, the moon, and the love of a good man.

**Author's Note:**

> the binary the Soldier uses says: "mission"
> 
> -
> 
> come hang out at [my tumblr](http://tchallafalcon.tumblr.com/)! :D


End file.
